It is not uncommon in the conduct of many games and similar recreational activities to employ indicia-bearing game pieces, as tiles, for a variety of purposes. Such tiles may, for example, constitute markers for maintaining a visual and/or tactile record of the then-current position, or status, or score of a player--such as in many known board-based games wherein each player's respective game piece is advanced along a playing surface path to provide running indication of position relative to the other participants. On the other hand, such tiles may comprise an integral part of a game--as in the well-known board game "Candy-Land" wherein the indicia-bearing game cards are randomly drawn by the players in turn and indicate how far each player's board marker is to be advanced, somewhat in the nature of the rolling of dice.
In still other arrangements, such tiles may in effect constitute the game itself, as where the game is defined by a set of rules governing the range of permitted user-initiated manipulations of the tiles; the game of dominos is an example of this third variety. It is presently contemplated that the game pieces of the present invention be primarily, although not necessarily exclusively, utilized in a game of this last type wherein a series of rules determines the propriety of specific game piece manipulations.
Traditional dominos, a popular game for young children, is comprised of a set of tiles, each bearing between one and six spots or dots on each of two halves of a rectangular tile surface. The first player places a tile on the playing surface, and each additional participant, in turn, places another tile into abutment with one already on the surface. Permissible placement of tiles on the playing surface is governed, however, by the limitation that the abutting portions of two adjacently-positioned tiles must match--i.e. bear the same number of dots. Each player begins the game with the same predetermined number of tiles and, should he be unable to play a matching tile during a turn, that player must draw an additional tile. The game ends when a participant plays his last tile--that player is the winner.
The game of dominos can prove to be an enjoyable and, at the same time, beneficial pastime for young children by fostering the development of both physical (e.g. eye-hand) coordination and intellectual processes (such as mental recognition of spatial relationships). However, the fun and challenge of dominos as a pastime diminish rapidly with experience and as the young child matures so that, at a fairly early age, the game is usually no longer sufficiently stimulating to merit the child's continued interest or attention. Although the prior art is replete with both domino-like games and with particular game tiles or pieces for use in a variety of applications, none provide the kind or degree of long term intellectual stimulation or level of difficulty required to satisfy an older child, much less an adult of normal aptitude.